November 07, 2015

MAMI 2015 Day 6: Playing With Genres

Five more movies today. Takes the total to 27 in 6 days. Now I really feel good about it.Ethiopia's Oscar entry, 'Lamb', is the story of a boy trying to protect his lamb from the world around him. It took time for the film to grow on me, but by the end, like all well-made coming-of-age story involving kids, it really worked.I followed it with the third episode of the 'Arabian Nights' trilogy. It started fairly well, continuing with the tone of Part 2, but eventually took an extremely accessible turn. The entire 380-minute docu-drama project, for me, was an academic exercise. And very tough to watch. But I knew I had to do it, because it is unlikely I'll ever watch it on my own. An unforgettable, ambitious, and unique creation.The Venezuelan film 'From Afar' was the Golden Lion winner at Venice this year. To be honest, that expectation did not allow me to love the film. It was very well-made but it is very tough for me to imagine that there were no better film at Venice.'Right Now, Wrong Then' on the other hand completely justified its Golden Leopard and Best Actor awards at Locarno. Unique and original, entertaining and insightful, I'll never forget this South Korean film.And we ended the day with the B-grade, gory, exploitative horror feast - 'Tag'. This Japanese film was so bad, and purposefully so, that we loved it. The opening sequence of the film will be remembered always by those who watched it in that theater. It was such a shock that the entire theater burst into laughter and applause. It is important for me to experience blood and gore and horror to complete my festival experience.Let us see what the last day has in store.P.S. The sixth day of the festival was on 4th November. Physical and mental exhaustion caused the delay in writing this post.

P.S. I started the 'Must Watch' recommendations in September 2010. Before that I had watched several movies that must feature in this list. But in order to save myself from the useless and predictable exercise of recommending all great movies, I decided to follow a simple eligibility criterion: The movies recommended here would be among those I watched or re-watched since September 2010. So please do not be surprised if 'Cinema Paradiso' or 'Apocalypse Now' (which are, in my opinion, definite Must Watch) do not feature in here. They will find a place in the list the day I re-watch them.